• Who You Gonna Call? Porkbusters!
• Line-Item Veto: A Pork Slayer?
• Ending Corporate Welfare As We Know It
• Pork Totals: Per Capita, Per State
• Appropriators In The 104th Congress
Citizens Against Government Waste
Join a thread, start a thread -- what do you think about pork?
When Is It Proper ...
And When Is It Pork?
WASHINGTON (June 4) -- "Every member of Congress has his own definition of pork," declares Bruce Cuthbertson, press secretary to Budget Committee Chairman John Kasich. And none is likely as stringent as those crafted by Citizens Against Government Waste.
The group lays out seven criteria for pork, and each project in the "Pig Book" satisfies at least one or more, in many cases, according to CAGW. To CAGW, a project is pork if it's:
• Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
• Not specifically authorized;
• Not competitively awarded;
• Not requested by the president;
• Greatly exceeds the president's budget request from the previous year;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.
Dave Williams, research director at CAGW, says the first six amount to "accepted budget procedures" since about 1974.